Death and Taxes

If I wanted to mess with the minds of the U.S. populace, here's how I'd do it.

by Duane Swierczynski

Part One: Death

If I wanted to mess with the minds of the U.S. populace, here's how I'd do it:

I'd cook up some impressive-sounding but rarely mentioned government center — say, the "National Counterterrorism Center" — and I'd have the head of that center — say, retired Vice Adm. John Scott Redd — talk to a national newsmagazine —say, Newsweek* — about a looming terrorist attack.

"We've got this intelligence threat," he'd say. "We're pretty certain we know what's going on."

The American people would think: Phew. Thank goodness somebody's paying attention.

But then I'd have him continue:

"We don't have all of the tactical details."

Um, what?

"But in some ways, it's not unlike the U.K. aviation threat last year."

Hang on a second. You lost me at the double-negatives. When you say "not unlike," do you mean that they're not going to try to sneak explosives onto planes via personal hygiene products packed in little clear baggies? Do you mean they're going to try something else? It's paperback books, isn't it? Little hollowed-out cores of James Patterson novels. I knew it!

"So we know there is a threat out there."

So you've said. But what kind of threat? How can we prepare? What about that fancy Death-O-Meter™ Tom Ridge cooked up?

"Until you know something that is going to make a difference, you know, you don't necessarily change the threat level."

But you said you know there's a threat out there. Wouldn't this help keep us on our toes? Isn't that what this was designed for?

"What that does is really stir a lot of people up and get them ticked off, but it probably doesn't accomplish much."

But there is a THREAT OUT THERE!

"We are going to get hit again, you know, but you've got to have the stick-to-itiveness or persistence to outlast it."

Stick-to-itiveness? Where can we buy some of that? And will it come in LITTLE CLEAR BAGGIES?

Yes, that's exactly how I'd screw with people's minds.

Enjoy your Labor Day weekend, folks.

* http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20466414/site/newsweek/page/0/

Part Two: Taxes

If I wanted to mess with the taxpayers at large, here's how I'd do it:

I'd set up some arcane system of taxing real estate, have it stagger along for years, then decide to suddenly, out of nowhere, come up with new ways to tax real estate. Ways nobody could possibly comprehend.

I received my letter from the Board of the Revision of Taxes last week, and all that I really could understand was that I was going to be paying about $117 more a year in real estate taxes.

At the time, I thought I was one of the lucky ones. I'd been hearing horror stories about how I could be paying hundreds, even thousands more each year.

And I recently had dinner with some suburban-dwelling friends who joked that their real estate taxes were so high, it's almost like a separate mortgage payment. (And I mean "joked" in that queasy, nervous-laughter manner of joking.) Maybe my neighborhood was headed in a similar direction. After all, we've got trees and shit.

So $117? Not bad.

Not so, says Brett Mandel.

Mandel, executive director of advocacy group Philadelphia Forward, recently sent out an e-mail blast urging everyone to appeal their assessment. "No matter how undervalued your house is," he writes, "someone is getting a better deal than you."

Mandel has some great examples up his sleeve — including how a house on allegedly the "worst block in the city" is being gouged at a higher percentage then the best block, aka Rittenhouse Square.

Mandel is urging everyone to appeal on the grounds of "nonuniformity," meaning houses with the same value are paying very different tax bills.

Is an appeal right for you? Check out www.philadelphiaforward.org/reassessment and decide for yourself.

Am I going to appeal my $117 hike? Yeah, I think so. Just to see if somebody who actually works for the city can explain this arcane system any better than Brett Mandel can. (Of course, if I'm suddenly re-reassessed, I'm going to be pissed.)

Enjoy your Labor Day weekend, folks.

(duane@citypaper.net)